What's Wrong With Stamp Catalogues

I was thinking about the general catalogues we use without thinking – Michel, Gibbons, Scott, Yvert, in Russia Standard and maybe a few others. Some are good, some are not. It often depends on the country you are interested in.

But all these catalogues date back to the days when collectors were most often one of each collectors and dealers one of each dealers. The collectors wanted to stick stamps in pre-printed albums or “write them up” and the dealers kept stockbooks by numbers.

You get lots of information which makes writing up easy: Date of Issue, Method of Printing, Paper type, Perforation gauge, sometimes (Gibbons) stamp designer and printer's name. You get a numbered list of stamps and Mint and Used prices, sometimes with some note distinguishing Used and CTO.

Many of these catalogue entries have been essentially unchanged for decades – well, a hundred years in some cases - as if there is no such thing as on-going philatelic research. Yvert is an example.

What you don’t get is a sort of overview which creates a context for understanding what you might find and what you will not find. In the days of one of each collecting that may not have mattered very much. Today, when people collect covers and do social philately, the old-style catalogue is not very helpful.

Let’s take an example. Look at your preferred catalogue for the Northern Army (OKCA) issue of 1919. It will be under “Russia” and will show five values, none of which is worth anything either mint or used. You will get additional information, varying from catalogue to catalogue. 

What you don’t get is a Thumbnail Sketch which sets out what we know about this issue, 100 years on. Here’s my own attempt at a Thumbnail, which could be made more precise from the literature available (mostly due, in this case,  to Alexander Epstein and Dr R J Ceresa):

This issue was printed in very large quantity in sheets of 200 made up of two panes of 100, separated by a wide gutter and printed tête-bêche to each other. Most sheets were separated into two halves, so that the gutter variety is quite scarce. Most of these stamps were sold to the stamp trade, at the time or later, and are very common as singles (often now in poor condition) and small blocks. Sheets of 100 are quite common. Despite being common, the stamps were forged and the forgeries are much scarcer than the genuine stamps. Very little Proof material or Printer’s Waste is known and when found is worth significantly more than the basic stamps. The absence of such material suggests that this issue was originally planned as a perfectly legitimate stamp issue.

The stamps were extensively Cancelled to Order in sheets and also CTO on philatelic covers, which are quite common and obviously philatelic. Specialists are not entirely clear which cancels were officially authorised. Some may have been manufactured by stamp dealers. It seems likely that some of the CTO material, and maybe most of it,  was produced in Estonia and not at the post offices in Northern Army controlled areas of Russia.

Postally used examples of the stamps are virtually unknown, and only about a dozen covers are recorded which appear to have gone through the post from the few post offices controlled by the Northern Army. Most of those covers originate from Gdov where however the Imperial Russian canceler of POLNA SPB was in use.  Any stamp or cover with a POLNA SPB cancel should be examined carefully and submitted for an Expert opinion.

A specialist could improve on that thumbnail and a good catalogue editor could make it shorter. If I am right about this, a Thumbnail like this orients you to a specific stamp issue and gives you some idea of what to expect and what to look out for.

For more dicussion of OKCA stamps,see my next Blog

Denikin Stamps and a common catalogue fallacy

Click on Image to Magnify

One of the most common catalogue errors is to value very old stamps on a New Issue basis. Low value stamps get low catalogue values and higher value stamps get higher ones. But this is often a very poor metric to use: in periods of inflation, for example, low value stamps have little postal utility and higher value stamps often get used in big multiples. This is true for several Russian Civil War issues, including the Denikin stamps of South Russia.

Michel 21010 / 2011 values used Denikin stamps as follows:

5 kop              0.20

10 kop            0.20

15 kop            0.20

    35 kop            0.20   

  70 kop            0.20 

1 r                   0.20

2 r                   1.50

3 r                   1.00

5 r                   1.20

7 r                   2.50

10 r                 1.70

In the Schmidt Collection (see previous Blog), a very old accumulation of Denikin Bundleware and Used Off Paper contained the following quantities of used stamps:

5 kop        17

10 kop      90

15 kop      91

35 kop    266

70 kop    337

1 r          176

2 r            83

3r            66

5r            64

7r              0

10r         220

Now, from experience, the 7 rouble is not a great rarity. It is simply missing from this old Lot - maybe it is in another cigar box. So I don't draw any conclusions from the fact there are no copies present. But look at the other figures. The concentration of  35 and 70 kop stamps reflects the fact that these were letter rates or the basis of letter rates ( 35 kop Ordinary / 70 kop Registered; later 70 kop and  1r 40 kop). The concentration of 10 rouble stamps reflects the fact that these were most needed for Money Transfer Forms and Parcel Cards.

I have illustrated the Denikin stamps with horizontal pairs. But for rouble values, vertical pairs and strips are more common - the space on Money Transfer forms and Parcel Cards allowed for stamps is a vertical strip. In contrast, horizontal pairs of 35 kop and 70 kop are common - they were used as letter seals.

Suppose I had the 7 rouble value. I estimate there would be 50 - 60 copies. So the constraint on making sets is provided by the 5 kopeck. I could only make 17 sets. (And the pair I have shown is the only pair I have ...) . A "Short Set" of used Denikins would exclude the 5 kop, not the 10 rouble!

One further comment: ALL the stamps in the accumulation I have studied are used in the period of "White" control of South Russia and Ukraine. Later dates which would represent Soviet use appear not to be present.  Such later use is most common on Parcel Cards. The low kopeck values would have been revalued x 100 in Spring 1920 and it may be that as a result the low values become more common in the Soviet period, but in my experience it is the higher values - especially the 10 rouble - which still dominate.